The campus mail that outlived its owner

The academic office had a system, a spreadsheet, and a memory. It also had a mailbox that one person had created, on a login the institution did not own. When they left, the office did not lose a person. It lost the front door.

Universities and colleges do not need another portal announced in September. They need attendance, the module and the staff list to be the same fact, and mail that still works in October. The machines in the lab and on the lecturer's desk should not be private snowflakes.

We make one record the record, put Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 in the institution's name, and enrol the devices so a starter is ready without a folklore lesson. Backup is proved by a restore, not by a schedule. Training stays in the work, because an unexplained system is abandoned by week two.

If the next leaver would take a system with them, that is the conversation to have before they do.